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I was pretty upset when he left the O's to sign with the Yankees but with the state of the team at the time you could hardly argue with the decision. He never won a world series as a Yankee which always made me smile and I've called that "the curse of the moose." I was "mad" at him for a while because he was the dominant O's pitcher I grew up watching as a teenager. To put his time as an Oriole in perspective keep these stats in mind.

Mussina was an Oriole for longer and has more strikeouts, wins and innings pitched in Baltimore than he did when he was in New York. In addition, he is 3rd all time in wins behind only Dave McNally and Jim Palmer on the Orioles all time list. He is also 2nd in strikeouts on the O's all time list behind, once again....drum roll..., Jim Palmer.

He his, in my mind, one of the very best pitchers to ever put on an Oriole uniform and as much as it killed me to see him in pinstripes he will forever be one of the best pitchers I was ever lucky enough to watch pitch in black and orange.

legmason wrote:I was pretty upset when he left the O's to sign with the Yankees but with the state of the team at the time you could hardly argue with the decision. He never won a world series as a Yankee which always made me smile and I've called that "the curse of the moose." I was "mad" at him for a while because he was the dominant O's pitcher I grew up watching as a teenager. To put his time as an Oriole in perspective keep these stats in mind.

Mussina was an Oriole for longer and has more strikeouts, wins and innings pitched in Baltimore than he did when he was in New York. In addition, he is 3rd all time in wins behind only Dave McNally and Jim Palmer on the Orioles all time list. He is also 2nd in strikeouts on the O's all time list behind, once again....drum roll..., Jim Palmer.

He his, in my mind, one of the very best pitchers to ever put on an Oriole uniform and as much as it killed me to see him in pinstripes he will forever be one of the best pitchers I was ever lucky enough to watch pitch in black and orange.

Well said. Pretty much exactly what I think.Moose was absolutely one of the most dominating pitchers in the league at times. If he would have gone to any other team than no one would have even cared.

Mussina deserves to be in the Orioles HOF, in fact I think he will make it into cooperstown. His stats are very impressive and keep in mind he pitched through the steroid era, where balls were flying out of parks at a record rate. His entire career was spent in the super competitive AL east...... Those two facts make all of his accomplishments that much more impressive. His winning percentage is also one of the best of his time.There were pitchers in his time that were more dominant ie Randy Johnson, Greg Maddux, and the Rocket....but Moose deserves his place in history. He was never very good to the press or the fans, but he was one hell of a pitcher. I will remember him as an Oriole.

birdwatcher55 wrote:I'm not happy with his selection. He will always be a Yankee in my mind. Your thoughts??

I feel like this is a very short-sighted view. He played in Baltimore for a DECADE. Many forget he signed an extension at a discount the first time around, irking many of his fellow players (since if one of the elite pitchers is taking less $$$, it deflates their salaries as well). He's the second best pitcher in O's history (some would argue he's the best, but I think that's Palmer).

The Orioles had their chance to re-sign him, but they low-balled him and dragged it out. I think if they had offered him a fair deal at the beginning, he would've re-signed here. Truth be told, I think the Orioles might not have wanted to re-sign him in the first place since they had one of the top payrolls in baseball at the time and wanted to slash it and as he pointed out, "get younger."

Bottomline is this, he worked very hard while he was here, had a lot of success, left as a free agent. Isn't business a two-way street? Sure I would've preferred him to sign with an NL team or any other team since they were by far our most hated rivals at the time.

My problem w/him was that he wouldn't let the Orioles trade him and get something back. I can't blame him for leaving Baltimore though. The Oriole teams of the early part of the decade were horrific and run by an ownership that didn't care about winning; he had a right to expect something better.

He's probably the second-best pitcher the team has ever had, and he belongs in the O's HOF if anybody does.